Richard Trumka Quotes
There has never been a major program in this country that when it was first passed, didn’t have glitches in it.
In every case except Obamacare, the Congress would pass technical correctional amendments as programs were implemented and glitches were found. However, with Obamacare, ultra conservatives were strongly opposed to it, and after the law passed over their opposition, they tried (unsuccessfully) to repeal it dozens of times. When technical glitches began to appear, they blocked correcting legislation on the political thinking that the defects would anger people and produce more support for repeal. Trumka observed that the conservatives had also bitterly opposed Social Security in 1936, but in the following years worked to pass correcting amendments and eliminate technical flaws. This was the first piece of major legislation that a substantial number of one of a political party members of Congress tried to sabotage the program and had enough intimidation power over the party leadership and statesmen, that they were enabled.
Richard Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO, Christian Science Monitor Breakfast, Defending Obamacare, September 1, 2013
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
For complex legislation, there are very few members of Congress who vote on the legislation who could honestly say that they have read the entire bill. Breyer and many others do not see this as a major problem; many others consider it a disgrace that members of Congress will vote for or against a law that they have not even read.
Note his choice of the word “control”. Some politicians believe that the purpose of most legislation is to enhance the control; that the government maintains over its citizens. However the United States Constitution was written and ratified so that the citizens could control the politicians. Neither group has prevailed totally.
In order to obtain the support for Obamacare from the Pharmaceutical industry, Obama, agreed to take this power away from the government.
He was referring to the Controversial regulations issued in the 2nd week of the Truimp Administration.. It was the first acttion by President Trump that involved managment and operation of something. It was very badly handled where the epople who had to impliment it in many cases didn't have the same interpretation as the White House. And then the White hosue reversed their interpretation of various aspects when they realized that there were some unanticipated consequences. Not all the government employees agreed with the policy and the usual coordination throughout the government and there was no oppoprtunty for the middle managers to lead their subordinates in implementing the policy. As Baker observed, Government is very different from business and Trump never had any business experience. In American history, there had only been one other President was a wealthy and successful businessman--Herbert Hoover--and he had his difficulties.
The threat was delivered to Mark Sanford a conservative Congressman from Southg Carolina, Sanford had stated that he would vote against Trump's plan for a replacement to Obamacare. He paid no attention to the threat and the intent of intimidating other Republican members of the House of Representatives failed, There were so many Republican defectors who would not vote for the bill that House Speaker Ryan, withdrew the bill at the last minute has the majority Republicans had so many defectors that the Obama Care replacement coult not possibly pass. This was a great blow to Presieent Trump and not President in history had been thwarted so early in his administration on a major bill. Worse Trump's own party contolled the majority and the entire party had run their campaingns with the "promise" to repeal ObabaCare. However when they tried to do it, they cound it was not so easy and even most of the conservatives proferred ObamaCare to the propsed legislation that the Speaker or the House and the Presidenet were advocating.
The bills and legislative processes in Congress had become so large and convoluted that literally members of Congress either voted on bills that were so lage that they rarely read the entire bill or on procedures so arcane that the members could not determine ehate they were voting for. As a result most just followed the lead of their party's Congrssional Leadership.
Richard Louis Trumka is an organized labor leader in the United States. He was elected president of the AFL-CIO on September 16, 2009, at the federation's convention in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He served as the Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO from 1995 to 2009, and prior to that was President of the United Mine Workers from 1982 to 1995. Trumka was named one of Esquire Magazine's Americans of the Year in 2011.
